The present invention relates to automated laundry separators or other laundry processing devices.
Many processes in laundries are automated. For example, machines in hotels spread out, iron, and fold sheets without operator intervention. To begin the automated process, the operator identifies either corners or an edge of the sheet and places the corners or edge into a spreader machine. Since sheets have large dimensions with thin fabric, the sheets are often tangled together, necessitating either an automated separator machine or an operator for manually locating the edges or corners.
A separator receives a jumble or bundle of articles, such as a compressed cake of linen or cartor cart (e.g., truck) of sheets from a washer or dryer. The separator separates individual articles from the bundle and outputs individual pieces or a few pieces together for easier feeding into the next stage of automated processing. Where possible, automated processes may save money over time. However, machines for automatically grabbing sheets or other articles of laundry (e.g., sheets) from a load of articles have been attempted. Such devices operate too slowly or have maintenance problems, such as due to rapid, yanking oscillation of components.